The Three, fairest of all, the Elf-lords hid from him, and his hand never touched them or sullied them.

There are no more uses of "sully" in the book.

Show samples from other sources

And though in near time we did sleep together (with a genuinely pleasing, if sober, conviviality), I came to think of that first interlude with a somewhat sorrowful fondness, for I saw that our days together were perhaps sullied from the very beginning and all the way through, right up to the last.

Chang-rae Lee -- A Gesture Life

Maybe I would waste my time on skills I didn’t care about—like sword fighting or badminton—but I would not sully the memory of my once-perfect music and archery.